As COVID cases rise, Australia's New South Wales says next 2 days 'critical'

Sydney/WELLINGTON: Australia's New South Wales (NSW) on Monday said the next two days would be "absolutely critical" in deciding whether a two-week anti-coronavirus lockdown in Sydney, set to end on July 9, will have to be extended amid rising Delta variant cases.

With more than five million Sydney residents under strict stay-at-home orders, total infections in the latest outbreak have topped 300. NSW reported 35 locally acquired cases on Monday, matching the biggest daily rise in infections so far this year, recorded two days ago. "We expect the case numbers of people in isolation to keep going up," NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters in Sydney. "What we are really looking at are the number of people who have still been infectious in the community and what impact that will have in the next few days."